Biography

Japetus actually began his musical career back in primary school playing side-drum in the school band. Throughout his childhood and early teens Jay, as he is known for short, continued his interest in popular music of the 60's and 70's playing cushions with his drum sticks and singing along to Beatles, Elton John, Pink Floyd and Cat Stevens albums.

At 19 he bought the latest Hammond organ with rhythm box and built in cassette deck and he discovered basic multitrack recording. After leaving home at 20 he also bought a drum kit but it wasn't until he started working at 'And Now For Something Completely Different' - a restaurant/venue in Chatswood on Sydney's north shore - where he could set up and play the drums properly, that he was able to really start exploring music.

The restaurant was a hub of Sydney's live music scene in the late 70's and over many years Jay learned music by proxy hearing musicians playing 6 nights a week. He even performed there for 6 weeks as Paul Dengate's fill-in drummer.

When the restaurant closed in 1980, Jay and his then partner music journalist Samantha Trenoweth, along with Paul, set up an 8-track recording studio in their house in Willoughby where he began writing and recording pop songs. He tried to get a traditional recording contract as a studio band but was a bit ahead of his time especially in Australia. he raised a lot of interest from industry people but just not the right people. He was managed at one stage by Anthony O'Grady (founding Editor of Rock Australia Magazine) who said once on Donnie Sutherland's Sound Unlimited TV show that "Jay was the best thing since David Bowie and sliced bread".

With no success after 3 years and also having a spiritual awakening, he began creating New Age ambient 'soundspaces' for healing, relaxation and self transformation. In 1983 he released his first album The Great Great Silence as Japetus. He then continued through to 1997 releasing a total of 12 albums to critical aclaim. These then went on to become the Visionary Journeys catalogue. From 1987 to 1994 Jay had a stall at all the Mind, Body, Spirit festivals up the east coast of Australia.

In 1994 he was commissioned to create the music for an international 26 part TV series Yin, Yang & You that went on to be screened throughout Asia and the Middle East over the following 15 years. In 1999 he moved to Byron Bay to digitally remaster the catalogue for release on CD and the internet.

In 2000 Jay won three North Coast Entertainment Industry 'Dolphin Awards' including Best Environmental Message song and in 2002 he won Best Folk song as well as many nominations for songs, ambient and artwork. That year he also released Peace & Quiet - a 20th anniversary double album compilation for relaxation. In 2003 his music and nature video was played on the in-flight First Class movie channel on Qantas international as part of a relaxation package.

He was signed as an official label affiliate to Apple iTunes in 2005 and all his albums could finally be purchased world wide. In 2006 he attended the 40th anniversary of MIDEM in Cannes - the biggest music trade fair in the world. In 2008 he filmed, edited and produced he second nature DVD called Visions of Byron which was magnificent nature scenes from around Byron Bay together with the soundtrack of Peace & Quiet.

Behind all the new age instrumental albums Japetus continued to write songs but they were very different from his early pop songs. They had matured and were quite inspired. Throughout the decades he worked on, practiced and arranged these new songs and in 2009 he realised they had formed themselves into a concept album and he began recording demo tracks to see how they came together.

In 2009 his older brother and mentor died in a sudden bush accident and he spent a couple of years reorienting himself and finding direction but in 2011 Jay decided to record and release the new songs for what amounted to the official start of the New Age after the solstice event on December 21st 2012.

He began recording in July 2012 after the Venus transit but with delays and problems it was obvious that it would not be ready for release until early 2013. So in November 2012 he was guided to release a first single to coincide with the 2012 Convergence. That song was 'Floating...' which went 'live' on iTunes on December 7th 2012.

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